Finny

by Justin Kramon

  Finny and Judith looked at each other across the dark hallway, silently acknowledging the other’s presence. But they didn’t say anything. Judith walked back to her bedroom.

  In the morning Sylvan was seated on a stool at the island in the sunny kitchen, hunched over a bowl of Cheerios. He was reading the Times, which they’d gotten early, and sipping intermittently from a mug of coffee.

  “Hey,” Finny said when she walked into the kitchen.

  “They’re fighting,” Sylvan said.

  At first Finny thought he meant Prince and his sister, since they’d seemed testy with each other the night before. But then Finny heard Judith shouting behind the bedroom door, “Nothing. It didn’t mean anything.”

  “What happened?” Finny said.

  “I don’t know,” Sylvan said. “I woke up and things seemed okay. I said hi to Judith. Then I went to wash up, and when I came back, they had the door closed and were yelling at each other. I don’t know if I had something to do with it.”

  Finny kept looking at her brother, to see if he would say more, mention Judith’s trip to his bedroom last night. But he just shook his head and stuffed a large spoonful of Cheerios in his mouth.

  “Not again!” Prince screamed. “I’m sick of this, Judith. Your behavior is disgusting.”

  Finny heard Judith crying, then Finny said to her brother, “Where’s Korinne?”

  “Walking the dog. How about Carter?”

  “I think he’s planning to sleep through the whole weekend. He’s had a hard time, Sylvan. He’s just getting his life together.”

  “Tell him to let me know how it feels,” Sylvan said, and Finny wasn’t sure if it was an invitation to ask about what wasn’t together in Sylvan’s life.

  “You feel like you’re ready to get married?” Finny tried.

  “I’m ready for a change,” Sylvan said. “Yeah, I’m ready. I feel like I’m going in circles now, and I need to head down a path. I love Mari. I really think she’s a good person. We have fun together.”

  Finny nodded. It was another bright, calm day outside. The water in the inlet was so still it reflected a perfect view of the sky. Seagulls sat on the dock pilings, their eyes ticking over the scenery. Then Judith shouted, “You bastard! Give me those!”

  “Beautiful morning,” Sylvan said.

  But Finny felt she had to say something. “Sylvan,” she started, “really, do you think you have anything to do with it? With why they’re fighting?”

  Sylvan shrugged and looked back at the newspaper. He read for a couple of seconds. Then, without lifting his eyes, he said, “If Judith can’t let go, it’s certainly not my fault.”

  “But don’t you think it’s better for you both to let go?” Finny prompted him.

  Before Sylvan could respond, though, Korinne burst through the front door with Homer on a leash. “I’ve been up since four-fifteen!” she shouted into the house.

  The door to Finny’s room opened, and Carter came out in his boxers and an undershirt, scratching his stomach. “Woo-hoo,” he said. “Hope you all didn’t wait for me.”

  “Wait for you?” Korinne said. “We’ve already walked five miles. Homer prefers walking on the beach, which is a better workout anyway. And we had to stop at the bakery in town for a linzer torte, since that’s his favorite breakfast in the world. He gets the sugar all over his face and it looks like—”

  But Korinne was interrupted by a crash from the bedroom. Then the door swung open, and Judith stepped through, shutting it behind her. She strode into the living room, wearing shorts and a sleeveless athletic top. “Leave me alone!” she called back to Prince. Her eyes were red and her face was splotchy. For the first time this weekend she wasn’t wearing makeup, and her skin had a puffiness that made her look tired.

  The door opened again and Prince was standing there, in a loose-fitting T-shirt and spandex biking shorts. “And take your fucking whore photographs!” he said, tossing a handful of photos into the living room after Judith. Prince slammed the door so forcefully the house shook, and as they recovered from the sound, the photos twirled like snowflakes through the room.

  “Oh God,” Judith said, running to snatch all the pictures before anyone saw them. Of course Finny knew which photos they were. Prince must have tossed them into the room just to humiliate his wife.

  Judith couldn’t grab them quickly enough, though, because in a moment Korinne let out a long howl, as if she’d been struck down in battle. She clapped her hand over Homer’s eyes, keeping her own shut, and screamed, “It’s too awful for words! He’s going to be traumatized!”

  “Oh, let me see,” Carter said, bending over to pick up one of the photos. He examined it, and said, “Judith, this is a good angle for you.”

  Judith fell on her knees, buried her face in her hands, and wept, her chest heaving, her shoulders shaking. Finny expected Sylvan to run to comfort her—it was what he always did—but this time he just sat there, watching her from his stool in the kitchen. So Finny went over and kneeled down. Put her arm around Judith’s shoulders. Helped her up off the floor. The others watched, quiet as a theater audience. Only Korinne repeated the word traumatized, as if to make sure everyone had heard. She still had her hand over Homer’s eyes.

  Then the phone began to ring. Once, twice, three times, the jangling covering up Judith’s crying.

  “You want me to get it?” Sylvan said.

  Judith didn’t respond, so Sylvan picked up the phone. “Hello?” he said. Everyone’s attention turned to him, as if the caller might provide the comfort they were waiting for. Finny could tell it was a woman’s voice on the other end, because of the tinny sound.

  Sylvan said, “Uh-huh. Yeah. Sure. I’ll get her.”

  He held the phone up, and Finny was about to tell him he should probably take a message, when Sylvan said, “Finny, it’s for you.”

  Chapter 33

  Another Trip

  The next half hour—which involved Finny racing around the house to gather her things, get dressed, and purchase airplane tickets—provided a much-needed distraction from that morning’s episode. Everyone seemed to rally around Finny, and all the energy that had previously been directed toward the conflict between Prince and Judith was now rerouted toward getting Finny to her plane. Sylvan agreed to get on the computer to check prices and schedules, and then call various airlines if it was too last-minute to purchase tickets on the Web. Carter helped Finny comb the bedroom and bathroom for dropped clothes and personal items. Judith made Finny sandwiches from the leftover meat and packed them in a Zabar’s bag. Korinne performed the double duty of keeping Homer out of Finny’s way and making sure Homer wasn’t frightened by the commotion of Finny’s departure. Even Prince finally came out of the bedroom and offered to give Finny a ride to the airport, or pay for a cab, though Sylvan said he was planning to take Finny.

  The flight was from MacArthur airport, in Islip, a good fifty-minute drive from Judith’s house. When Finny had her bag packed, she said a hurried goodbye to everyone, not even taking the time to give hugs since she was in that much of a hurry. She told Judith she would call her, and thanked Prince for letting her stay at his house. Then she thanked everyone else. She couldn’t even think straight; she just wanted to get on the road. Finally, she was strapped into her seat in Sylvan’s car. She said to her brother, “I know you’re normally not a speed demon, but you’re going to have to zoom a little for me. I can’t miss this plane.”

  “I know,” Sylvan said.

  And so his Ford Taurus was driven as it had never been driven before. Tires screeched, the engine groaned, turn signals were neglected, traffic lights ignored.

  “Who’s going to pick you up when you get there?” Sylvan asked.

  “I’ll call the airport shuttle,” Finny said.

  “That’s going to waste your time. Why don’t I call from my cellphone once I drop you off?”

  “I don’t know the number.”

  “I’ll get it,” Sylvan said. “Don
’t worry.” He patted her on the leg. “I’ll give them your flight info.”

  She was glad Sylvan was the one driving her to the airport. He was good at reassuring her in times of crisis. And there was some continuity in sharing these moments with her brother. They’d been through so many together. She wouldn’t have felt as comfortable with anyone else.

  “How did she sound?” Sylvan asked Finny now.

  “Not like herself,” Finny said. “It’s the first time I’ve heard her really panic.”

  “What else did she say?”

  “She gave me a long explanation about how she’d gotten my number. I guess I’d mentioned to her that I was going to Judith’s for the weekend. So she called Thorndon and got the number of the beach house from the alumni directory. I wasn’t sure why she was telling me all that stuff. I think it was just the first thing that came into her head. It was almost like she couldn’t hear herself talk. Her mind was somewhere else.”

  “It’s scary when that happens.”

  “Especially with someone like Poplan,” Finny said. “I always expect her to be in control.”

  “You can’t control this,” Sylvan said. “Did she say anything about how he was doing?”

  “She said he’d been having stomach pains. And then he just passed out at the dinner table. At first Poplan thought he’d fallen asleep, but when she saw the way he was breathing she realized it was worse than that. She called an ambulance, and it turned out he has a tumor the size of a grapefruit. Inoperable. She said they told her he was in his final days—that he’d been lucky to make it this far. Now he’s getting a ton of pain medication. They hired a nurse so he could die at home.”

  “Oh, Finny,” Sylvan said, “it’s so sad.”

  “It really is,” Finny said. “I feel like I’m not built to handle this stuff.”

  “All you can do is what you’re doing.”

  Finny shrugged, but just then an old woman in a large-brimmed hat pulled her Volvo wagon in front of Sylvan’s Ford Taurus. She was going only about fifty miles per hour in the fast lane of Sunrise Highway, and Sylvan honked his horn and flashed his lights. But the display had no effect. Sylvan honked some more, but still no response. It was at this point that Sylvan jerked the car into the middle lane, tires screeching, and sped past the old woman who had clogged his lane. In the rearview mirror, Finny saw the old woman, who was wearing large plastic glasses with a librarian chain, lift her hand to give Sylvan the finger.

  “Wench,” Sylvan said.

  In ten minutes they were stopped in front of MacArthur airport and Sylvan was helping Finny get her bag out of the trunk. He gave her a quick hug and said, “Good luck. I love you.”

  Mr. Henckel’s bed had been set up in the living room of the little brown house, so that he could be next to his piano while he slept and woke. At the moment when Finny walked in, he was in a sleeping phase. Poplan was the only conscious member of the household. She greeted Finny with a long hug, explained that the nurse had gone out for the afternoon and that Earl was due to arrive in the evening. She brought Finny to the bedside, where Finny sat in a chair next to the pole on which the IV bag hung, dripping morphine into Mr. Henckel’s vein.

  Mr. Henckel lay in a square of late-afternoon sunlight that had pierced one of the tiny windows in the room. The light was so clear and soft that it set him off almost unnaturally from the rest of the room, which lay in a dull shade. He looked nearly as pale as his white bed sheets, and his face had an oily sheen to it. He was thinner than Finny remembered him from her last visit. She could see the cords in his neck. It struck her all of a sudden how old he’d gotten; she’d never thought about how old he was when she was a teenager. His hair, or what remained of it, was now a uniform steely gray, like an answer his body had settled on. He had the covers pulled up all the way to his chin, and the morphine must have been responsible for the content look on his face.

  “He’s been out of it because of the drugs,” Poplan said to Finny. Her voice sounded weak, thinner than Finny had ever heard it. “Thank you for coming. He was asking about you before.”

  “How are you doing?” Finny asked Poplan.

  “Exhausted,” Poplan said. “This is a lot to take.”

  Finny reached over and gave Poplan’s hand a squeeze, and they both smiled sadly at each other.

  “Do you need anything?” Finny asked.

  “Just your company,” Poplan said. “How was your trip?”

  Finny told her about her brother being cut off by the old woman with the glasses and the floppy hat, and Poplan laughed. They talked on about small things for a while, as Mr. Henckel napped. The light from the windows was fading, yet neither of them got up to turn on a switch. Mr. Henckel’s eyelids seemed held shut by the most tenuous pressure, and Finny felt as if the smallest movement might cause them to snap open like window shades. He was sweating now, his forehead wrinkling then falling slack. He seemed to be working over something in his sleep.

  “Is he in pain?” Finny said.

  “Not for long,” Poplan said. “Linda should be back soon.”

  At around seven Linda showed up, a large dark-skinned black woman with a pink scar over her left eye. She was dressed in hospital scrubs, her hair in braids. She asked Poplan how Mr. Henckel was doing. Poplan introduced Finny, and when Finny extended her hand, Linda gave her a hug. She told Finny about what she was doing for Mr. Henckel—mostly controlling his pain—and said she’d be happy to answer any questions Finny had. But Finny didn’t have any. She decided to go for a walk while Linda adjusted Mr. Henckel’s medicine and cleaned him up for the night.

  Finny walked to the old vineyard. She took the familiar path, down the hill, across the road, past the bird pond that was too dark to see at this hour. She hadn’t been back across this route since the summer when Earl left that first time, and now, as she walked between the vines that wrapped the wire trellis, she was struck by how small it all looked. She was a head taller than the green walls, and she could see all the way across the valley from where she stood. The countryside was quiet, the sky enormous, a gray-black ocean above. Lights were coming on in the farmhouses, like candles in a dark room. There is so much space in the world, Finny thought, hearing her own breath, looking across the wide valley, feeling a rush of loneliness like a cool breeze. She thought of that night years ago when she’d woken to the sound of pebbles tapping her window, Earl’s awful news, their sad goodbye. And the way that afterward she was left by herself to bear it, as you finally are with all bad news, while the world spins in its well-worn circles.

  She was getting cold. Night was dropping its curtain over the valley, and Finny worried she would have trouble finding her way back, it had been so long. So she started off toward the little brown house. She tugged her thin black sweater more tightly around her, the one she’d been wearing yesterday when she got to Judith’s. It felt like so long ago.

  Back at the house, Earl had arrived. He was sitting in the chair where Finny had sat, next to the IV drip. He got up and gave Finny a hug, thanked her for making the trip. He had a beard now, clipped short, and though he looked older, he was well-groomed and handsome in his way. His body had filled out in the years since Finny had last seen him, the youthful muscularity settling into a comfortable fleshiness—not fat, but solid. He seemed to stand straighter now in his checked sweater and faded khaki pants. He had the look of a tenured professor or a lawyer on his day off.

  “It’s so good to see you,” he told Finny. “If only it wasn’t such a miserable occasion.”

  “I know,” Finny said. “It’s a sad reunion.”

  They both sat down next to Poplan. Linda was in the kitchen, reading the Bible and humming to herself. Later she would go to sleep in Earl’s bed, which Mr. Henckel had kept for him ever since he’d moved away. Poplan, Earl, and Finny stayed up through the night with Mr. Henckel as he slept in the living room. They’d switched on lamps, which provided only a dim light for the bedside. But it was enough. They could see Mr. He
nckel with the sheet pulled up to his chin, looking small and scared as a child. Finny wanted to comfort him, to ease his sleep. They took turns holding the hand that wasn’t hooked up to the IV, and when he woke briefly, they whispered comforting things to him, about how much they loved him, how wonderful their memories of him were.

  Finny said she’d never forget her piano lessons, that he was the kindest teacher she’d ever had. She said she’d always be grateful for the way he’d welcomed her into his home. He mumbled something back about the coffeepot being warm for her. Earl talked about what a loving father Mr. Henckel had been, how close he’d always felt to him, how lucky he was to have been taken care of so well. He said he knew he was always loved, and he had such great respect for what his father had made of a difficult situation. Poplan simply said that her years with Mr. Henckel were the best and most meaningful of her life. She kissed him on his damp forehead and then wiped it with his handkerchief, the way Mr. Henckel used to after his confessions. They told him all the things they’d never found the right moment or taken the time to say. It was like a bedtime story for Mr. Henckel, as his eyelids began to close. Or like a suitcase they were packing for the journey ahead of him.

  Toward morning he woke up. He seemed more lively and alert than he had during the night, though when he spoke, his speech was slurred. “Goff,” he said.

  “I’m sorry,” Poplan said. “What?”

  “Goff. Ee.”

  Earl understood. He went to the kitchen and prepared the coffee, setting the silver pot on the silver tray and then bringing it to the bedside. He poured the coffee into the china cups, and they each clinked their cup against Mr. Henckel’s one last time. Mr. Henckel drank his thirstily. Finny distributed the milk and the sugar, stirring it with the little silver spoon, and they all enjoyed a brief coffee party together, like the old days, until Mr. Henckel lost his strength and spilled coffee on himself. Poplan was worried he’d been burnt, but he assured her he was fine, that coffee could never harm him.

  “And one more. Thing,” Mr. Henckel said, between heavy breaths, as if he’d just run up a flight of stairs. Finny could tell he was still dazed from the morphine, by the way his eyes wandered the room, yet the coffee seemed to have given him strength for this request.